lime syrup cake

This cake tested my patience! Not it terms of baking it but in terms of waiting to eat it :). I’ve been thinking of baking this one since the last weekend but when I finally went in the kitchen, I realized I had no lemon! On Tuesday, I was alone at home, watching Masterchef Australia and suddenly I wanted to bake. I so wanted to smell that aroma of fresh cake. So I opened my Nigella Lawson’s ‘How to be a Domestic Goddess’ page 13 ‘Lemon Syrup loaf cake’. Now the recipe called for self-raising flour. Last time when I had made a cake using self-raising flour it didn’t raise at all! From then I had decided to stick to all-purpose flour and baking powder for any cake. I ‘google-d’ for the recipe and went to first link that came up Eat Little Bird! Even before I could read the recipe, I just loved the look and feel of the blog. To top it up her pictures and the style of presenting a recipe in pictures is amazing!

So I followed Thanh’s measurements and voila! The beautiful cake was ready in no time :). But where it tested my patience was that I wanted to eat it with Sikander and so I had to wait a whole night while the cake was sitting right there in my fridge and I was waiting for him to return the next day.

We don’t get lemon here, so I used lime and hence the different name :P. Limes have a stronger flavor than lemon so you might want to adjust quantity. Also I used buttermilk instead of milk so that the cake is extra moist.

Lime Syrup Loaf Cake

For the Cake

½ cup softened butter (the recipe calls for unsalted butter; but I always use Amul which is slightly salted.)

½ cup castor sugar

2 eggs

Zest of 2 limes

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

4 tbsp buttermilk

For the syrup

Juice of 1 lime

½ cup icing sugar

Butter and line the loaf pan well.

One very handy tip by Nigella here: Make sure that the lining comes an inch or so up from the sides of the pan for easier unmolding later.

Preheat oven to 180°C

Cream together butter and castor sugar together until fluffy

Add the lime zest and the eggs, beating them in well

Add the flour, baking powder and then mix in the buttermilk

Spoon the batter into the prepared loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes, until the cake has risen in the middle and is lightly golden in colour.

While the cake is baking, prepare the syrup. Put the lime juice and icing sugar in a small saucepan and heat gently so that the sugar dissolves.

As soon as the cake is out of the oven, puncture the top of the loaf all over with a skewer. Pour the syrup evenly all over the cake.

Leave the cake to cool completely and let the syrup do it’s magic.

Another tip here: If you try to take the cake out of the pan before it has cooled down, the cake might crumble as it will be sodden with syrup.